“This one,” I said.“‘Disabled vet needs helper. Free room and board, in exchange for light housekeeping.’”My best friend listened to me read an online advertisement aloud over the phone. I was searching for a roommate in a new city after running from a failed relationship that ended — but not in marriage as I’d planned.I suddenly didn’t belong anywhere. In my early 30s, I felt too old to move home, too defeated to stay where I’d been, and highly motivated to live with someone I didn’t care about. “Too late,” I said, as she tried to talk me out of it. “I’m going to meet him and look at the house this week.”I was searching for detachment, along with an adventure in a new city, where I could be nonchalant and apathetic. Numb.I began to have doubts when I arrived at his house. Warning bells were going off in my head, and my hands were sweating.“What am I getting myself into?” I muttered.I knocked on the door and an older, white-haired man attached to an oxygen tank greeted me from his wheelchair. “Come in, come in,” he said.His mouth made a wide grin, as he waved both hands.“I’m Chip.”He wheeled backward and told me to follow him into the kitchen. I closed the front door behind me and was surprised by how fast he moved. “An orange kitchen! I love it!” I almost squealed.As a chronic renter, greige walls followed me from lease to lease. This kitchen felt inviting, like apple cider in the fall. Chip explained that a few of his children lived in the area, but he cherished his independence too much to live with any of them.“You don’t need to be home every hour,” he told me. “You’re not expected to be my nurse — I just need occasional help and peace of mind that someone is around. I also need someone to assist me in the kitchen.”My mind raced. The kitchen? The ad didn’t say anything about the kitchen. “My idea of cooking is heating a can of soup, and on my more ambitious days, grilling a cheese sandwich to go with it,” I admitted. “So, I’m not sure I’ll be much help if you’re looking for a chef.”Chip slapped his knee and laughed.“If you can use a can opener, we can make it work,” he said. “I love to cook. I just need someone to get supplies out and open up cans.”I looked around his kitchen and noticed that he had more spices on one shelf than I’d ever owned.“My specialty is opening cans,” I replied, laughing.The next thing I knew, Chip and I were agreeing on a date for me to move in.Before my first cooking lesson, I put on an apron to show Chip I was serious. We were making his favorite: chicken cacciatore. My first task was to open the can of tomatoes. It seemed easy enough, but the black can opener refused to cooperate. If it were possible to hold a grudge against an object, that black can opener would’ve been my nemesis. I tried it multiple times and nothing happened. I was failing the simplest test.“Why isn’t this working?” I asked and groaned audibly. I wanted to throw the thing across the room. The opener wobbled, but didn’t cut the metal, and suddenly the can slipped out of my hands and slid across the counter.I muttered a few curse words. Out loud. Why did I tell Chip opening cans was my specialty?I was afraid to look at him — nervous about what expression I would see on his face — but instead of disappointment, I saw kindness in his blue eyes.“It’s a new contraption,” Chip said, and demonstrated how to use it again. “You’ll get used to it. Look, the whole lid comes off. Here — like this.”When I finally managed to open the can, Chip raised his hand for a high-five.“You got it!” he shouted.I grinned like the Cheshire cat.More than just a can of tomatoes got opened that day. The can opener the author inherited from Chip.Courtesy of Nancy BischoffChip and I became an unlikely pair in that kitchen. When he ran over the cord with his chair and cut off the oxygen flow, which was often, he’d sputter “damn thing,” and I would untangle it from his wheel and hook him up again. As he cooked, he’d tell me stories about his children, his grandchildren, and his wild younger days. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” he’d say and shrug, before diving into another story.“When I was first married, my wife made dinner. I took a bite and told her it was the worst meal I’d ever tasted.”“Chip! What’d she do?”“Got up crying from the table as my friend and I laughed.”“I can see why she’s your ex-wife,” I teased him. Somewhere between our daily routines and “family” dinners, we stopped being housemates and became confidants. Just like contrasting ingredients that end up going surprisingly well together, we quickly became two people enjoying the kind of comfortable friendship that usually takes years to build. However, I knew we didn’t have years. One day after work, I walked into the house and found Chip was already in his bedroom with the door closed. I could hear his oxygen tank making a hissing sound like water furiously boiling. I was nervous that something might be wrong, so I called Chip’s son, who lived nearby. “There’s no easy way to tell you this,” he said. “But, when dad’s oxygen tank is on high like that...” He paused. “...Well, it means he has a lady friend in there with him.” He couldn’t see my bright red face, but he could hear my laughter, and I continued laughing alone in the kitchen long after we had hung up. One afternoon, a rainstorm followed me home. I waited in the car for it to let up, but it refused. I decided to make a run for it, and as I sprinted to the front door, my umbrella folded in on itself. I burst into the house dripping and shivering. Chip was waiting in the kitchen and I realized he’d been watching the entire time through the window. “Too early in the season for a swim,” he said, grinning.The next night, a brand-new umbrella was waiting for me beside my dinner plate. “One that opens!” he noted.I thanked him and found myself getting a bit emotional. It wasn’t the umbrella. It was the way he noticed what I needed without my having to say a word. I’d moved in with a stranger to avoid connection, but just like the black can opener and my new umbrella, I was starting to open up as well. The indifference I was sure would be easy to maintain with a non-romantic acquaintance began to fade. I wasn’t just Chip’s housemate — we had become an unorthodox but very real kind of family.“Chip, do you care if I invite someone to dinner?” I asked one day. “I can’t wait,” he replied.After my date left and I was cleaning up the dishes, Chip said, “That fellow’s sweet on you.” “I know,” I said. “I just don’t think I feel the same way. What do you think?”“I think that boy hasn’t missed too many meals in his lifetime, is what I think.” We both broke into laughter. “Let’s go watch ‘The Sopranos.’ I’ll beat you in there,” Chip said as he wheeled out of the kitchen.I was still at work and not in the kitchen on the night Chip called for an ambulance. His breathing had become more than his machine could handle. The hospital became his home, and hospice his reality. Even though I knew I was losing Chip — and it hurt — instead of feeling bitter or concentrating on what I was losing, I realized how much I’d been given. I understood how much love we had shared.It’s been 16 years since I lived in the house with the orange kitchen. And though I never developed Chip’s love of cooking, I adopted his take on family dinners. Everyone is welcome. It doesn’t need to be gourmet to be good. Cellphones are not acceptable dinner companions. One more plate is always easy to add. And the most important thing I learned is you never know who might cross your path and make an unexpected impact. Whatever season life finds you in, remaining open to possibility without judgment just may change your life.The last time I saw Chip, just as I was leaving, he yelled for me to come back. I walked over to his bedside and leaned in close to him, so he wouldn’t have to strain to talk. “The can opener is yours now.”Nancy Bischoff is an attorney and educator with a master’s degree in educational leadership. She lives with her husband (whom she met in court as opposing counsel), their teenage daughter, and two pups. When she’s not writing, she’s reading — probably about someone who cooks better than she does. She still uses the can opener from this essay. Learn more about Nancy at nancybischoff.com and on Instagram @libraryofnancybischoff.